


They Met At A Wedding

by prophet_of_troy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, First Meetings, Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley Friendship, Redeemed Dudley Dursley, Resistance, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prophet_of_troy/pseuds/prophet_of_troy
Summary: They met at a wedding, in which Ginny is of the opinion people don't change and Dudley wants to show her he has.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25
Collections: Hermione's Nook RarePair Soulmate Fest





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: The outline of your shadow is the shape of your soulmate.

Chapter one. 

Dudley could remember well, even a number of years later, the very first time he experienced hatred. Not the passive hatred he had for Harry at such an early age, but true anger and loathing for another human being. He didn't remember their name, he didn't remember how old he was, but he remembered their tone of voice when ridiculing his shadow-and in turn- his soulmate. They'd laughed at how little his shadow was for how big he was, and how amusing they found it that his soulmate would be stuck with a pile of blubber like him. 

He'd never thought of himself as big. Other people were just small. 

At home, he wasn't fat. He was just unhealthy, and, well, who cared about health in the first place? At home he wasn't stupid, he just hadn't learned things yet. At home, he wasn’t the one that got picked on. At home, he was the one in charge. More or less. 

“Leave him alone,” his cousin had said in a stunning spout of bravery. “If anyone’s soulmate would be disappointed, it will be yours!”

The other kid was bigger than he was, one of the older kids that liked to torture the younger. Dudley, even with his size, couldn’t do anything to  _ him. _ But he was bigger than Harry- Harry who was glaring at the older kid protectively. Angrily, he stepped over and shoved the smaller boy as hard as he could, watching him fall to the ground and look back up at him with glassy green eyes, and felt a sickly pleasing twist in his stomach.

“I don’t need your help!” He’d snarled.

After school he ran home as fast as he could, panting once he’d finally reached his room. He slammed the door as hard as he could, as hard as he’d pushed Harry, and took pleasure in the creaking sound it made as though it were close to breaking. He felt like breaking something. He felt like destroying his entire room. 

Instead, he laid on his bed and cried himself to sleep.    
  
*   
  
When Dudley woke from his nap it was evening and he could see the shadow of sunset painting half of his room. He sat up, feeling more depressed than when he’d fallen asleep, and his shadow sat up with him. He stared at it for a long time, moving just enough to see his shadow move too. 

“It’s not true,” he said, sitting with his back against the adjacent wall to continue watching it. “I know it’s not true. I’ll love you, whoever you are, and you’ll love me just the same. You’ll love me.” 

He never  _ stopped _ talking to his shadow after that. Maybe at first he somehow convinced himself that maybe she could hear him, that maybe she was talking to him too. He wondered what she looked like when she wasn’t greyscaled. He wondered if she liked the same shows he did. He wondered if he would ever meet her. 

He hoped to. 

The shadow aged with him, though he was sure that she was younger; she was so small. Her hair grew longer, long enough that she usually wore it up. She wore long dress things that flowed when he walked; becoming the sort of person that he’d despised first and the most. But in his room, with only he and his shadow- his soulmate- he was who he wanted to be. He told her about Harry, about his being conflicted about his parents and who they were as people, he told her about wanting more than anything to meet her. He told her about what they might do when- not if, his therapist told him confidence was very important- they met. 

Even later, after he’d reconnected with Harry, he talked to her. He made promises to her about what he would do to be better, to be the sort of person that deserved to meet their soulmate, to be the person that deserved to have  _ her _ \- whoever she was- as a soulmate. In talking to her constantly he found the strength and the motivation he needed to  _ keep _ those promises.

He never dated, though he had plenty of opportunities once he’d gotten his act together. He just… couldn’t. If he was a romantic sort of person, and he liked to think he was even after everything, he would say he was waiting for her. Maybe everyone felt that way about their shadows, their soulmates, but somewhere he hoped not. 

But he hoped  _ she _ did.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter two.   
  
Ginny never paid much attention to her shadow. It was there, it was bigger than most, but there was always something else more important on her mind. One day it might be drawing a picture of what she imagined the Boy Who Lived would look like. Another day it might be learning how to fly with her brothers, and having to make a pleading face when they tried to exclude her. The only time she ever really paid any attention to her shadow was mildly admiring how it chased her as she flew, waking up earlier than everyone else so that she could practice. She did her best to outfly it and the sun, faster and higher than she knew anyone else would go. 

“It’s just a shadow,” she said dismissively when there was such a conversation with her family. “What does it matter?”

“Careful, dear,” her mother had said. “That’s your soulmate you’re talking about.”

“I don’t see the point in obsessing,” she’d shrugged. “No one ever meets their soulmates.”

Her mother looked concerned, setting a plate in front of her and smoothing her hair. “That’s not true. I met your father. I’ve known plenty of soulmates who have found each other. It’s not impossible.”

Ginny mumbled as the last of her brothers came down for breakfast. “I just don’t see the point, I guess. What if my soulmate is a prat?”

“Having you as a soulmate-”

“-he’d have to be.”

She waited until her mother’s back was turned before taking a spoon full of porridge and slinging it at the twins.    
  
*   
  
As it happens, she met plenty of people that found their soulmates- and plenty that didn’t. She met people who found their soulmates and decided they were better off without. Ginny decided she was better off without meeting hers. Besides, by the time her friends were finding their soulmates she had a war on the mind to keep her from searching for hers. 

Harry and Luna were first. They realized it in the midst of an evil, pink coup d’etat- barefoot in the forest to feed the thestrals that only the two of them could see. They were sickeningly perfect for one another, inciting an enchanted peace in the other that she was happy to see for her friends. 

Hermione and Fred discovered their shadows the same year Harry and Luna did, and their relationship was sudden. They found out who they were to each other and it was as though they always knew, which surprised everyone. Especially Ginny. She’d thought Hermione would be of the same mind she was about her own shadow, but Ginny had never seen anyone so in love with another person aside from maybe Harry and Luna. Maybe her parents.

Ron and Pansy Parkinson were a surprise, at least. It was the Final Battle, and they finally collapsed into each other’s arms at the end. Pansy became another friend, her snobbiness melting away into a fierce personality that inspired Ron to stand up and stop being a putz- a word Harry used once that she quite liked the sound of as it left her mouth. 

Maybe she thought about her soulmate sometimes. 

Maybe, after a family dinner watching the joy on her friends’ and family’s faces, she took a few minutes laying awake in her bed at night to think about the bliss she might have if she were to ever meet her own soulmate. Maybe she took a few minutes to wonder where he was, if he was doing alright. If he ever thought of  _ her _ .

Or maybe she just stared at the moon until she fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter three.   
  
Luna wanted a spring wedding. The edge of the Forbidden Forest was decorated fantastically, though the wedding wasn’t until the next day. Harry, terrified he might mess up his own wedding- it  _ had _ taken quite a while for his bravery to poke its head so he could propose at all- had insisted they have a rehearsal, something wizards didn’t really do as plenty of times the wedding was the first time the bride and groom saw each other at all.

“Oh, Ginny, thank Merlin, Harry is losing his mind,” Luna told her breathlessly as soon as she met them outside Hagrid’s hut. “He’s worried about the wedding, says everything is wrong, he won’t listen to me. I-I think he’s worried I won’t show up or something.”

Ginny groaned; looking around at the fairy lights already strung up, the torches lining up the aisle that Luna would be walking the next day. She was familiar with Harry’s self doubt, self depreciation, but she’d thought he’d gotten over the worst of them after the war. She’d thought the end of Voldemort would heal those scars. She sighed and glanced back to Luna’s worried and trusting expression, her wide eyes, and Ginny laid a hand on her arm. 

“It’s alright, Luna, I’ll talk to him.” 

She walked purposely over to where Harry was talking wildly to someone, and stood between them to confront her friend with a healthy dose of tough love she’d inherited from her mother. Her eyes caught the familiar lines of concern on his face, ones she recognized well from before, and she wished Hermione weren’t on bed rest. She’d be able to come to the wedding, but only because she was missing the rehearsal. Hermione would have been able to talk Harry down easily. 

“Harry, talk to me. Luna says you’re having second thoughts.”

Harry’s green eyes widened with fear. 

“No! Not at all,” he pulled at his hair which was getting a bit long. He walked around in a circle while he muttered. Ginny estimated five minutes before he had a total meltdown. “I-I just want it to be perfect, and everything’s wrong! She deserves the perfect wedding. If it can’t be perfect, we-we should just call it off. Luna deserves-”

“A soulmate who isn’t going to leave her because of his own insecurities.” Ginny grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him into a chair that she conjured as he sat. She knelt in front of him. “Now, look. I know that you’re having trouble, but it will pass. It always does. This is Luna we’re talking about, she doesn’t  _ care _ about having a perfect wedding. If you show up, it will be perfect to her. Now I’m going to get you a glass of water, you’re going to drink it, and then you’re going to go apologize to your fiance. Okay?”

He took a few deep breaths and someone placed a glass into her hand that she held out to Harry. He took it and gulped it down, calming as he finished it. Ginny glanced around to make sure that no one was paying any attention to them, and helped him to his feet. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Thank you, Gin.”

“Go!” She smiled at him as he nodded and went off to his love. 

Ginny stood up with the glass in hand, and turned to thank whoever gave it to her, the smile dying as soon as she saw them. She’d known he’d be there, the cousin. She said the word in her mind like an insult. The  _ Dursley _ . Among she and her friends in school, that  _ was _ an insult. Harry said he was different now, she found that incredibly unlikely. Her light expression quickly turned into a glare. 

He looked nice enough, different than the description Harry and her brothers gave her long ago. He was sturdy, but not corpulent. Tall, strong chin, weak jaw, and he smiled at her charmingly enough, but she wasn’t an eleven year old easily fooled anymore. 

“Ginny, was it?” He asked, holding his hand out to shake. “Harry’s told me all about you. I’m Dudley.”

“I know,” she said flatly, not making any move to take his hand. She glared him down until he withdrew it, his own smile falling. “The  _ cousin _ .”

He chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck in a sheepish fashion. “I guess my family’s reputation precedes me.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and vanishing the water glass. “That’s one way of putting it. Harry says you changed. For his sake, I hope he’s right. However, if you so much as call him a name in an amusing little speech tomorrow, I will  _ show _ you how I survived my last year at school under the regime of fanatical Death Eaters. Am I understood?”

Ginny didn’t give him a chance to answer, turning around and walking towards the once more happy couple. Behind her she heard him call, “It was nice to meet you.”

She paid him no mind.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter four.

Everything was perfect. Everyone was dressed, the girls the bride had chosen in cream colored dresses with tangerine sashes that Luna absolutely adored, and the boys Harry had asked in trousers and parchment colored peasant shirts. Tables were set up for after the ceremony, decorations had been touched up to the bride and groom’s specifications, and- thanks to Kingsley and Neville having been able to keep the ever insistent press away- there was no hint of the near disaster which had occurred the day before. 

The skies were clear in the late afternoon, but there was still the lingering smell of rain from the night before. The wind smelled like spring and sunshine, both valid scents without further words to describe them. They were waiting for sunset when Fred and Hermione arrived. They hadn’t been around lately due to Hermione ready to pop at any moment, but she was glowing more every time they did come around.

“I am not,” she complained, whining and touching her extended middle while Ginny braided flowers into her hair. “I look like a whale in this. I don’t even know where to put the sash.”

“You look gorgeous,” Ginny laughed, teasingly tugging the lock of hair she was working on so Hermione’s head came back.

Hermione shrieked and turned back to look at her in amused indignation. “Gin!”

She went back to braiding the next flower. She continued, “And if you don’t stop saying you’re not, I will go get my brother to make you see reason.”

Hermione groaned, looking over at where Fred and George were joking with Harry. “Please don’t. He’s been so over-protective lately. Last week he decided he was going to carry me everywhere.”

“Stop moving your head,” she said, moving her head back to its position. 

“It was sweet at first, but I actually just want to have this thing so he’ll go back to normal.”

Ginny snorted, leaning over to get another flower. “Normal? Fred? He’s about as abnormal as they come, Mi.”

Hermione hummed, contented. “I suppose.”

“Aunt Mione! Aunt Ginny!” A blue haired toddler came running over and embraced Ginny’s around the waist tightly, and then began jumping up and down in excitement still hugging her. 

“Teddy! There’s my little man!”

“I’m gonna marry Uncle Harry and Aunt Luna!”

Ginny laughed and Hermione turned her head a bit. “We heard! Come sit with me and tell me all about it.” 

He bounced over to her and clambered awkwardly into her lap, being very careful about her stomach. “I been practicing with Grandma. I wrap the ribbons around their hands and then me and Uncle Harry and Aunt Luna are gonna move i-into a new house together.”

Ginny went back to doing Hermione’s hair, watching Teddy with a smile. “Yeah? You’ll still be able to visit, won’t you? You’ll break my heart if you don’t.”

“Uncle Harry says it won’t be far, and-and we’ll still see everyone every day.”

“You better,” Hermione said. “We’d have to kidnap you otherwise.”

“Noo!” He giggled, standing up again. “I-I’m going to go see Uncle Harry.”

Teddy ran off, still bouncing and very close to overbalancing. He collided hard into Harry, who almost overbalanced himself. Hermione and Ginny laughed, watching Fred pick the four year old up and throw him over his shoulder. 

“Is that him?” Hermione whispered, waving at her over her shoulder. “The cousin?”

Ginny’s fingers paused in their braiding and she looked up to find Dudley had indeed arrived. Her smile died and she took a deep breath, focusing back on Hermione’s hair and trying not to sneak glances back up. “That would be him.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Ginny asked, shrugging her shoulders even though she knew Hermione couldn’t see her. “I’m not doing anything. I’m finished.”

“Yes, you are,” Hermione accused with a light chuckle. She wheezed, struggling to stand up, but she waved Ginny away when she tried to help. “You’re doing that thing you do. I bet you haven’t even talked to him, and you’ve already decided not to even give him a chance.”

Ginny scoffed, watching Dudley greet her friends like they were his. Like he knew them. She saw him glance over at her, giving her another inviting smile, and she looked away. “For your information, I have talked to him. I met him last night.”

Hermione hummed at her. “And did you give him a fair chance or did you blow him off on principle?”

Ginny didn’t answer and Hermione continued. “People change, Ginny.”

She crossed her arms defensively and scoffed again. “People, yes, but you don’t change from being a Dursley.”

“Eehh, it’s not that hard, actually.” Ginny startled and turned around to find Dudley standing close and gesturing mildly as he talked. He was even smiling a bit. “I have a friend whose dad helped me get the right paperwork; some fees were exchanged, a few weeks waiting for it to process, and ta! I’m an Evans now.”

She immediately felt awful, shrinking back a little in guilt. “I-er- I didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine,” he said, his smile fading into one of assurance. “It’s the least I deserve given the circumstances.”

He looked over and held his hand out. “Hi, I’m Dudley… Evans, not Dursley. You must be Hermione. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Likewise,” she said slowly, her eyes shifted back and forth between them as she shook his hand. “I’m going to go check on how much longer. We’ll talk later, Ginny.”

Hermione walked off, joining Fred, George, and Harry and leaving Ginny standing awkwardly in her wake. She closed her eyes and sighed. She turned to him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I meant it when I said that it’s the least I deserve. How about you and I start over?”

“How about I just pretend you don’t exist until you scuttle off back in your own world?” She countered, her guilt dissipating as soon as he started talking again. 

“You’re trying really hard to hate someone you’ve never met before,” he told her, though he hadn’t stopped smiling. It was bothering her. “And I was going to ask you to save me a dance later.”

“Like I would ever dance with you.”

She turned away from him and Dudley took two light steps so she’d have to look at him again, walking backwards with her. “Got a soulmate that will curse me or something for asking?”

She glared at him. “Maybe.”

His smile kept changing, broadening now into a grin. “No you don’t.”

Ginny stopped walking, exhaling sharply in exasperation. “And you know that how?”

“I can’t imagine anyone being with someone half as gorgeous as you are and not wanting to spend every moment with them, particularly a day as auspicious as this one.”

“Careful you don’t use your entire vocabulary in one sentence, Dursley.”

“Aunt Ginny! Aunt Ginny! It’s time! It’s time!”

Ginny’s face brightened in time to catch the boy running at her. “Well then let’s get you where you need to be, huh? Let’s go find the Headmistress.”

She was more than happy to get away from Dudley.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five.

Luna was beautiful. She looked like a star, shining and shimmering with the sun setting behind her as she almost floated down the aisle with a bouquet of wildflowers in her hand and a crown of them on her head. Beside Ginny, Hermione sniffed and wiped at her eyes. When Ginny looked over at her, her eyes caught Dudley’s and he smiled at her again, or did he never stop? Maybe it was the moment and the sight of her friends, whom she’d never seen either of them look so happy, but she gave a small smile back. 

“I’d like to start by saying that I have watched Luna and Harry from their first day at Hogwarts as two wide-eyed children, new to the world, I have watched them blossom into the inspiring individuals you see now, and I am honored to think I have contributed to that in the smallest amount. Luna, Harry, I hope to continue to watch you grow- this time together.”

The handfasting was beautiful. Mcgonagall said their vows as Teddy tied the sashes around their held hands, not to be removed until dawn as a sign of unity. Hagrid bawled during the entire ceremony, and McGonagall choked on a few of her lines. The sun dipped below the horizon as they kissed, their shadows growing in the light of the lanterns and entwining as Harry led Luna in their first dance. 

"Dance with me?" 

It was Dudley again. Ginny was inclined to dismiss him again, tell him to stop harassing her and go off to stand near someone that looked imposing. Krum, maybe. Maybe it was the tears in Harry's eyes or Luna's watery, happy smile- but she accepted. 

If he was surprised he didn't look it. Instead, he relaxed and took her hand. His were warm, and once they were dancing, the tension in her shoulders melted away. He was in truth, and she would deny it if anyone asked, a wonderful dancer. 

*

She was soft. Dudley didn't know why he was drawn to this stranger he'd heard so much about, but he was. As soon as he saw her, talking Harry down from a panic Dudley was sad to say he'd caused once upon a time, he wanted to know her. Her obvious disdain for him only made him want to know her more. He wasn't ignorant. He knew what she must think of him- what they must all think of him; these people that became Harry's family when his own refused to be. But he wasn't that person anymore, and more than anything he felt the need to prove it to this spark he now danced with as though he weren't afraid of being burned. 

"Perhaps we could start over," he suggested quietly. The light reflected in her brown eyes and made them look like embers. Or stars. They could just as easily be stars, if stars could bite like fire. If stars could go cold and accusatory the way her eyes did when he said it. 

He respoke. 

"At least give me a chance to win your heart before you crush mine." 

She huffed at him and glared, but the embers in her eyes tamed a bit. "That's a horrible line. You don't know anything about me, and I don't like what little I know about you.”

“Everything you know about me is at least four years out of date,” he told her. 

“People don’t change,” she countered. “Not really.”

“If I was that person still, I wouldn’t be here to dance with you and Harry wouldn’t have invited me.”

Ginny, he wondered if that was a nickname for something, dropped her face in contemplation and mild guilt. “I suppose you’re right.”

Dudley grinned at her, spinning her and watching her dress expand around her. She collided back into him with an abrupt exhale, looking up at him and searching his eyes for something that he hoped she found. 

“Was that so hard?” He asked.

They danced on and the tension that had been there before was gone. 

“Harry and Luna are very dear to me,” she said finally after some time, obviously beginning some sort of threat. He interrupted. 

“They are to me too.”

He didn’t think he could convince her of how true that was. It started slowly, with Harry reaching out after their war was over. Then he and Luna both welcomed him with open arms, believing in him and how different he had become and making him believe more in himself in the process. 

The dance ended, but he stood still looking at her and she at him. It felt like the air had shifted and as sharp as she’d been with him before, she was soft and wild and the light in her eyes held a rebellious charm- something like understanding- rather than the poised tongue of flame it had before. He’d never felt so poetic. 

When the music didn’t start again for the third dance, Ginny broke their gaze to see what was the matter. She squeezed Dudley’s arm to make him see that everyone was looking at them, stunned and obviously lost for words. Harry looked startled. Luna was beaming at them. Dudley felt cold when Ginny pulled away from him and crossed her arms in a defensive stance, the late evening spring breeze blowing her hair behind her shoulder and he could see goosebumps arise on her bare shoulders.

“Well?” She demanded in a harsh tone. “What are you lot looking at?”

“I knew it,” Luna told her groom. “I just knew it! Didn’t I tell you, Harry? Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “You did.”

Other people were whispering, an uplift of excited murmurs waving over the crowd with smiles and knowing expressions and the music started again without anyone answering Ginny’s question. Dudley, ever conscious of his and follow the stares of a few strangers, looked down at their shadows and blinked. 

That was him, and his own familiar shadow was definitely the red haired girl he’d been dancing with. 

There was a swelling of joy in his chest and Dudley felt the urge to pick her up and spin her around like in old black and white movies, if only to watch their shadows as he did. Instead, he decided she probably wouldn’t like that and he took her hand to get her attention- which he did. She spun on him, ready to strike. 

“Look at our shadows,” he whispered. 

He studied her face as she looked down. He studied the emotions that played across her brow; surprise, denial, outrage, nausea, panic. She blinked at them and her cheeks reddened, her mouth opening to speak before she closed it again. He could hear her take a few quick and shallow breaths before her eyes met his and widened. 

“I-I need a minute.”


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter six.    
  
Two minutes. Ginny was going to confront this in two minutes, running towards the castle lit like a city. One hundred and twenty seconds, and she was going to use them to wrap her head around the sight of her shadow and his, that she and Dudley fit perfectly inside. Two minutes and she was going to talk to him. Two minutes and she would decide how to feel. 

Her first instinct was to say that it wasn’t Dudley. Her shadow couldn’t possibly lead her to  _ him _ , and the Fates would never be so cruel as to make his lead him to  _ her _ . She wouldn’t wish herself and her temper on anyone, except maybe a Dursley. She’d just agreed to give him and his ‘friendship’ a chance, if only to herself. 

Her second instinct was wonder, and alleviation in her chest that she heard everyone felt when finding their soulmates. She wanted to laugh and cry and go to Dudley- whom she really knew very little about. She wanted to dance. 

“Ginny?”

It was him. 

She took a deep breath, several deep breaths that bordered on panicked panting, and turned around to face him. She could still hear the music from the wedding. She could see the lanterns at the edge of the Forest. She could see him, barely, and thanked anyone listening that it was too dark away from the reception to see anyone’s shadow.

“Go away,” she said hoarsely, taking a step back away from him. 

She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to settle down and have a family. She wasn’t ready to belong to someone else. She wasn’t ready to become her mother. 

“Don’t run,” he pleaded, hunched over with his arm extended and sounding out of breath. “Please. I don’t think I could catch you.”

“Then don’t try to.”

“Are you kidding?” He wheezed. “I’ve been waiting my  _ life _ for you. I’ve wanted nothing more for as long as I can remember to find the person in possession of the other half of my soul.”

Her chest pounded, from running and what she was avoiding. 

“I haven’t,” she admitted. “I haven’t thought about you at all. I never cared about my shadow.”

“Trust me,” he said, standing up straight again. “I cared enough for the both of us. I used to talk to it, thinking maybe you could hear me."

"You didn't even know me," she took another step back. A small one. "You  _ still _ don't know me."

"I want to. I wanted to then, and I wanted to before I knew who you were to me. You were the only constant in my life. You were the only thing in the world I was sure of- that I wanted to find you, I wanted to know you, and I wanted to spend my life with you. I'm one down."

They were interrupted by a squealing sound and one of her brothers' fireworks lit up the sky. She wasn't startled, even though she knew she should be, and she looked over at the names that held for a moment before raining down. She turned back to Dudley, and in some small part to see their shadows before it was too dark again, to find that he'd closed the distance while she was distracted and he was now looking down with that tenderness in his eyes that he'd had while they were dancing. 

Maybe that was why she'd given in when he asked her to forget what she thought she knew. Maybe that was why she believed him that he'd changed. She liked him in spite of herself. 

"I'm going to kiss you," he whispered as the last of the fireworks dissipated from the sky. 

"Catch me first." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! I hope everyone liked it. I'm happy with it and I had fun writing it. Happy Valentines Day!


End file.
